


A Year and a Day

by linaerys



Category: BBC Merlin
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-06
Updated: 2008-12-06
Packaged: 2017-10-07 07:25:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/62801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linaerys/pseuds/linaerys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pre-series, Arthur goes into a fairy hill.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Year and a Day

**Author's Note:**

> Hugs and thank yous to [](http://neptuneskisses.livejournal.com/profile)[**neptuneskisses**](http://neptuneskisses.livejournal.com/) for beta-ing!

Arthur hunted further and faster than the other knights that day. His horse was swift, and carrying only a slim sixteen year old boy, before his first growth of muscle. He liked to ride ahead and leave behind his father's knights who seemed as much nursemaid to him as they did men he would one day lead.

He _would_ lead them one day, on that point his father had been clear, and so it stung doubly that half their duty was to watch over him. When he led the knights he would change the testing. The old men who had been on his father's campaigns would be hard pressed to keep up with the pace he set, the tests of speed and agility.

His horse was no destrier, just a fleet gelding with an uncanny sense of the forest, who leapt over fallen logs as though he had run this route a thousand times before, although they were further from Camelot than Arthur had ever been on his own, and in the wrong direction.

Through the brush in front of him, he could see a shape moving, like a woman in white, trailing mist. It was not a woman, he knew, but the white hart they hunted today, an omen of change, and luck. It could never be caught, so legend said, but they chased it anyway.

Arthur pulled his horse up in a clearing, and waited for the hart to show itself. Slowly, it stepped out into the clearing. Its eyes were wide and golden, the hue of magic. Its footsteps fell on the ground with the sound of bells. Arthur couldn't hear his companions anywhere in the forest, the baying of the hounds had faded somewhere along this ride, and now he was all alone. He smirked at the thought; there would be more glory for him that way.

He kept his bow at the ready—the antlers could be deadly—but somehow he knew that if he loosed a shot, it would never find its mark. The hart's flanks were transparent, as if it could disappear into Fairy at the slightest provocation.

For a moment he and the white hart stood eye to eye. He was starting to think of firing his arrow anyway, because what if he _could_ truly kill it? He would be renowned among hunters and bask in his father's praise. But then the hart inclined its head in an unmistakable bow, turned tail and sped off into the forest.

Arthur swung himself up onto his steed and took off in pursuit. The hart more than kept pace with him, and as the light fell with the coming of evening, the glimpses of white grew fewer and fewer, until, in the twilight blue, he knew he had lost it entirely.

The forest around him was entirely unfamiliar to him. Through the trees he could see the big, orange, autumn moon rising. The year was drawing to a close, but the air was still warm, a last breath of summer.

Arthur hobbled his horse and left it to graze among the few remaining green bushes in the undergrowth. He started a fire to warm himself and pass the time until he felt tired enough to sleep. He had some cheese and bread in his saddlebag. He ate these, and drank from his wineskin, feeling very adult, out here on his own. In the morning the sun, or the birds, or the moss on the trees would lead him home, he had no fear of that, but this night was an adventure.

The moon set early, and it was full dark under the trees. The ground wasn't the most comfortable place to sleep, but a bed of leaves was soft enough, and he was tired from the day of riding. He banked the fire, and curled up in his cloak.

The sky was still dark when he woke again, but from the trees and bushes shone golden sparkles, and as he watched a golden light, as from a vast, well-lit feasting hall, spilled into the forest. Following in it was a long procession: delicate horses with beautiful ladies atop them, and knights, almost as slim and beautiful as the ladies, riding at their sides. Behind them flitted small creatures with dragonfly wings, whose looping flight painted the forest with shimmers of gold. When they flitted by their features were sharp, feral, hungry, but from a distance they appeared to be as graceful and magical as the rest of their cohort.

Arthur hid himself back in the shadows to let the procession pass, but when the lead horsewoman passed the tree behind which he hid, she called out, in a voice like plucked harp strings, "Arthur Pendragon, King who was and will be." Arthur stepped forth and threw his shoulders back, pulling himself up to his full height. The lady extended her hand. Arthur clasped it and bowed over it, lips hovering a fraction of an inch above her cool, delicate fingers. "I am Nyneve," she continued. "Queen of the Fairy. You will feast with us tonight."

Her steward knelt on the ground, and Arthur stepped on his back, as the lady gestured. She made room for him in front of her on her horse, as if he were a child. The horse had seemed small and delicate before, but now he could see its broad back was strong, as were the long fingers of the lady with her hands on the reins.

They rode out through the forest for a time. Arthur saw as if with new eyes, the wild animals that came to watch, and other small figures, that did not seem to be animals at all, but small men, with peaked hats and short spears. The lady's breasts against his back were cool and pressed lightly against him whenever the horse took a step.

She laughed when she felt his reaction, her hand bold on his thigh. "I am not for you, mortal child, but fear not, we have much need of your fire."

The procession continued through the wood, and made a great circle under the outstretched arms of the great oaks. They came to rest in a clearing that held a circle of standing stones. Arthur had seen such circles before; legend said they stood from before the time the Britons came to this land, that they had been raised by fairies and fairies used them still. At the time he had dismissed those as mere legends—magic he could well believe in, after seeing the damage wrought to Albion and the spirit of its king—but fairies seemed a step too far.

The fairy horses stopped outside the ring of stones, and their riders dismounted. Men, or something close enough, clad in green and brown, wearing wreaths of autumn leaves around their foreheads, leapt and ran and danced into the circle. They danced more wildly than any human celebration Arthur had ever seen, accompanied by the beating of drums and their own strange, wild singing.

A bonfire was lit in the center of the ring, and although Arthur saw no hands feeding it wood or fuel, it climbed higher and higher into the night sky. _Magic_, thought Arthur drowsily, but he couldn't bring himself to care. He wondered what his father would have to say about a display like this. Could he fight magic that seemed to bubble forth from the very earth?

He sat in a bed of furs laid out by Lady Nyneve's servants. He rested his head against her thigh, content to watch the dancers, and note the suppliants who came to bow and kiss the lady's hand. Many of them bowed to him also, and this too seemed natural and right.

At some signal that Arthur couldn't see, the dancers' feet carried them out of the ring again, and the fire died behind them. Their procession wound back through the wood, now bathed in a cool light, as if the evening's festivities had exhausted their golden brightness.

Arthur rode with the lady again. Her horse's hair was a white so pure it was almost silver, and the bridle had tiny bells on it that made a sound so sweet it made his throat tight with longing.

They rode back into the forest, to the base of a great hill. A huge stone door opened in the side of the hill, and in the procession disappeared, taking their strange light with them.

Arthur slid off the horse and stood to the side as the procession continued by. The lady put her hand down and cupped his face with her cool fingers. "Will you come, and be king under the hill?" she asked. Her eyes were a dazzling blue, her hair like beaten gold.

_Yes,_ came? to his lips easily, but he closed his mouth over it. Camelot seemed far away, and the lady's beauty was near, but still he hesitated. "I have duties in the world above, my lady," he said regretfully.

"You shall be king for a year and a day," she said, putting a cool finger on his lips. "If after that you wish to stay . . ."

The old stories came back to him, of knights who went into a fairy hill for a night, and when they came back the world had passed on without them, and their grandchildren were grown. "And how much time would pass in my kingdom?" he asked.

Her laugh, too, was like the chiming of bells, sweet and mocking. "One night alone shall pass here," she said. "As long as you leave at the appointed time."

"What would you have me do, my lady?"

"I would have you king forever more, young Arthur," and now her cool fingers trailed fire in their wake, and in that moment Arthur felt he would not deny her for the safety of all of Albion.

Two of her handmaidens took his hand and led him through the great doors. When they closed behind him, he started at the noise, but soon forgot his concern. Before him lay a vast field, lit by neither sun nor starlight, but a diffuse light that came from everywhere and nowhere.

The handmaidens mounted him on his own horse, a gold to the lady's silver, with a copper mane, and a warrior's spirit. He rode between the maids, looking at one, and then the other. They were almost as beautiful as Nyneve. They flirted with him and taunted him, tossing long, unfettered hair, vying for his attention.

Huge, sleek cows grazed in fields of sea green grass. They rode on, far further than any distance that should fit beneath the hill. They passed through a forest with leaves of gold and silver, worked finer than any treasures Arthur had seen in his father's possession.

The fairy fort was taller and older than Camelot's great castle. The stone that formed its walls was seamless, as though it had been sculpted out of the hill on which it stood. The maidens, Branwen and Olwen, gold and silver themselves, showed him to his room, a light and airy chamber, lit by strange lanterns that gave no heat.

Olwen winked at Branwen as she left, and then Branwen was in his arms. She was cool as the lady Nyneve had been, but her kiss fired his blood, and he lay her down beneath him on the bed.

"I like mortals," she said, as he kissed her neck. "So much passion."

Arthur had never had a woman before, beyond fumbles in corners that always ended too soon, but something about this place kept him from any nervousness he might have felt. She made him ready with a touch, but took her time about her pleasure, riding him to her own contentment before allowing him release.

She slipped out soon after, and let him sleep. The bed was soft but his dreams were troubled. When Branwen came in to wake him in the morning, he tumbled her in the bed again, but again, no matter what he did, he could not achieve satisfaction until she wished it.

"I could make you my slave, Prince Arthur," she said after. "You would lust for me and never be satisfied."

He gripped her wrist tightly. Already whatever satiation he'd gained from their joining was draining away, and he felt the thread of fear that she was right. He wanted to take her again, and this time make her bend to him, make her feel the same fire he felt, instead of her mocking coolness, but her eyes merely widened at his touch, and her smile stayed mocking.

"Is that what your queen wants for me?" he asked. Her wrist felt like wire, flexible but unbreakable.

Again her taunting laugh. "Would that she did, but no, she has other tasks for you."

**

And so she did. In the mornings, or what passed for morning in this land without sun, he trained with the finest fairy swordsmen. Some were slim men with bright blades, for whom fighting was a deadly dance, all footwork and trickery. Some were grim warriors, whose blades had lineages longer than most kings, and whose grips were stained with the blood of giants.

In the afternoons he sat by Nyneve's side and dispensed judgments, for just as the lands of men, the lands of fairy were at constant war with each other, avenging old wrongs with new ones. Arthur settled these disputes as best he could, using the wisdom learned from his father and from Gaius.

In the evenings they feasted, and listened to the bards tell their tales. In songs Arthur learned the truth of the white hart, and heard the tales of the wild hunt, who ride fearsome horses, horned like stags. He heard tales of men and women who went into fairy and emerged a hundred years later, only to have their mortal bodies crumble to dust. He heard tales of dragons, who controlled the gates of time and space, and could read what was written in the book of destiny.

At first he did not eat or drink, but Nyneve told him he was still bound by her word: a year and a day, and he could eat fairy food if he wished it.

And in the night came Branwen or Olwen, or any number of other fairy maidens. They blended together, this one dark, this one bright, but always the same mocking laughter, the same thin satisfaction that never lasted until morning.

He fell much into the company of Nyneve's nephew Daragh. They were of a height, and well matched with any weapon. If Daragh sank an arrow into a tree, Arthur could split it with one of his own, and only deception would allow Daragh to best Arthur when they fought with swords. Daragh had some small magics, puffs of smoke, tiny glamours that gave him a slight advantage there, but even then Arthur learned the particular furrow of Daragh's forehead before he let loose one of his little tricks, and with concentration he could see through it.

They hunted together as well, tracking fleet deer through the silver forest. The white hart never appeared to Arthur again, but other magical creatures were brought low by his and Daragh's arrows. One night they slept outside after killing a doe. They cooked what they would of the meat. Then Daragh recited a spell over the carcass; it rose and shook itself, and wandered away, skin as unblemished as if Arthur had never carved it with his knife.

"This is an enchanted land," said Arthur, but Daragh could hear the doubt in his voice and responded, "If aught is missing, I know my aunt will grant it to you." He looked at Arthur slyly. "You already have the pick of her ladies."

Arthur shrugged and poked at the embers of their dying fire with a stick. He couldn't put into words what was missing, except to say, "I can reach for them, but never touch them."

"Usually mortals want that," Daragh mused. "They pine themselves to death for one more touch of fairy. You are a rare one, Prince Arthur." His voice went low. "I would offer myself, if you would have me," he said.

The offer didn't seem as strange to Arthur as it would have a month prior. This was a dream, where every move he made seemed fated and right. The Fairy took their pleasures where they found them, with few taboos except that beauty must desire beauty, and ugly must also desire beauty. Daragh fit that; he had beauty to match Arthur's, with his smooth, dark hair, and slanted cat's eyes.

Daragh put his hand on Arthur's chest. "I too crave the touch of a mortal." It didn't seem strange when Daragh kissed him, long and sensuous, but his mouth on Arthur's prick gave him no more lasting pleasure than the fairy maids did, and after, when he said to Arthur, "You burn like fire, my prince," Arthur could do no more than look away, unwilling to insult his friend.

***

At every feast, some beautiful fairy man or woman shared the place by the lady Nyneve's side, and each night, her chosen companion followed her out of the hall, looking hungry and enchanted.

"Why don't you choose me?" Arthur asked one day.

"Are my ladies not pleasing to you?" she returned.

Arthur looked over at them, each a different version of beauty, each enchanting in her own way. "Yes . . .," he said, and could not keep the doubt out of his voice.

"You would not find me any better," she said sadly. "Mortal love is best. It burns out quickly, but so bright." She looked at him, and her eyes seemed like lakes he might fall into. He had never loved anything, he thought in that moment, as he loved her. "That is why my ladies desire you so. You have a fire that no fairy knight can match."

"Do you desire me?"

"More than I can say." He heard the melancholy in her voice, and wanted to take her in his arms and drive it away, but he knew from the touch of her hand that she was right; he would find her more beautiful than any of her maids, but like them, too cool and remote, with alien passions that fitted poorly with his own.

He knew, too, that he would finish out his year and a day, and then leave this immortal beauty behind. In Albion, death came quickly, too quickly for most, but at least when he touched something there, he could hold it.

The days passed pleasantly enough, though. He grew strong and agile against his fairy opponents, until he could beat many of them. Even eating light fairy food, he grew stronger, broader, and taller as the months passed. He learned the ancient laws of Albion, those that had been passed from the old ones onto his forebears, the primacy of oaths, and the importance of a king's word above all.

The bards told tales of mystery, deep knowledge that had been lost to Uther's court, perhaps even to the druids. Arthur could hardly remember these tales after they had been told, but they impressed themselves upon him nonetheless. When tracking a deer through the gold and silver forest, he could read omens in its footsteps, and when it fell to his arrow, it spoke words to him that he could understand.

Still, he marked off the days. He knew fairies and their promises; if he lingered a moment beyond his year and a day, he would be trapped here forever, and emerge perhaps, as an old man to find everyone he knew dead and gone.

Then their hill was attacked by another fairy court, and Arthur rode to battle at the vanguard. "It is good luck," said the lady Nyneve. "A mortal warrior to fight, and a half mortal sorcerer to confuse. All we lack is a mortal bard, but still none in Fairy is as lucky as we." She kissed him on the lips, and he forgot to ask who the half mortal was. He'd met no one like that in his time here, and he would have known, another's mortal blood calling out to his.

"I have kept him from you," said Nyneve, with a cat's smile. "You would love him more than me."

"Impossible," said Arthur, bowing low over her hand to kiss her fingers.

She cupped her hand around his face. "If you prevail today, I shall be yours," she said. Arthur's heart quickened at the thought.

"Then I shall not fail, my lady," he said.

No sight was more stirring than the fairy knights assembling for battle. They were armored in works of art, thin hammered silver chased with gold, delicate as the forest's golden leaves, but stronger than the thickest steel. They wore mail that shimmered like sunlight on water, and their war horns sounded more pure than the voices of the finest of mortal singers.

They met the enemy on a vast field ringed with russet oaks. The smaller fairies were there to act as a distraction, while the knights massed for battle. The knights of the enemy were just as beautiful as Nyneve's but dark and terrible as well, teeth bared in malicious smiles that grew broader when their spiked maces drew blood. They were flanked by creatures out of nightmare, skull-faced giants, and goblins with no faces at all.

Arthur's heart quaked in his chest, but he steeled himself and gave the signal for a charge. The horns of war rang out over the plain. The tides of battle broke upon each other with a mighty clash, and the dark knights gave way. Arthur glanced over at the other knights. A bright white light lit their armor until it shone like the sun, and the nightmare creatures shied back.

But Arthur couldn't look further, for those who could withstand the light still pressed their attack. A knight engaged him. His hair was black like midnight—like Morgana's, Arthur suddenly thought, surprised to be thinking of her. The outside world did not often cross his mind here.

He had pale skin, and lips as red as blood. Even as the light shining behind them burnt his face and hands red, he renewed his attack, and Arthur had to go on the defensive. His sword made great slashes, and Arthur's steed stepped back, keeping him just outside the reach of the terrible, sweeping blows.

Arthur saw an opening as the knight's horse reared, and with a precise sweep, lamed the horse's front leg. It landed heavily and its leg buckled underneath it. The knight's eyes shone with hatred as he slid off the horse's back, and stood, with the animal's body behind him.

"You will pay for that, mortal," said the knight. Arthur dismounted as well; although the knight would be easy prey were he to stay on horseback, there were rules in fairy warfare, even more than in Camelot.

"I am Gamlach, the lord of thunder in the night," said the knight, in the ringing tones of a challenge. "I am the death that takes children in their mother's arms. You cannot escape me, mortal."

"I am Arthur Pendragon," Arthur responded, returning those dark titles with the arrogance of no title at all.

Afoot they were well matched. Arthur had the reach on Gamlach, but Gamlach's blows had a strength and precision that Arthur's lacked. Again, Gamlach drove him back, but could not come within Arthur's guard. Still, the longer the fight wore on, the more danger Arthur was in. Few could match the bright strength of a fairy-chosen mortal, but none could match the endurance of an immortal fairy knight.

Soon someone would have to take his place in this fight, and Arthur would lose status, possibly even his place by Nyneve's side. In the corners of his eyes, he could see his fellow knights gathering in a circle around their fight. He could sense their eagerness to join, to prove themselves the better of Nyneve's chosen mortal.

The larger battle was won, but Gamlach fought on. He tried to turn Arthur, striking always from the right, but Arthur retreated backward rather than turning himself as Gamlach desired, so that strange light no longer shone, burning, into Gamlach's eyes.

Arthur made a desperate lunge that opened his flank to one of Gamlach's raking outer cuts. He steeled himself for the pain, but none came. The light shining from behind Arthur grew even brighter. A burn on Gamlach's forehead suppurated and the fluid blinded him for a moment. A moment was all he needed; Arthur was too close for a full stroke, but a sharp backhand found a gap between in Gamlach's armor near the arm. With the last of Arthur's strength he continued the cut, pinning the knight there, his black blood coursing down Arthur's sword and burning his hands.

"Do you yield, thunder lord?" Arthur asked, keeping his grip on the sword, even as the blood bit like acid into his skin.

"I yield, mortal," he spat.

"Good," said a voice to Arthur's side. "Bind his wound, take him prisoner." Nearby knights rushed to obey. Arthur pulled his sword free and loosened his grip, although his hands didn't want to come free, and left some skin behind.

"Allow me." The voice came from a figure so bathed in light that Arthur could not see anything of it. The figure took Arthur's hands in his own, and slowly the light faded, until Arthur was looking at a dark-eyed youth, with even brows, high cheekbones, and a mobile mouth. His touch was cool on Arthur's burned hands.

"You're the mortal mage," said Arthur stupidly. His head still buzzed with the excitement of battle, but his limbs sagged as exhaustion took them. "You didn't have to—I would have had him."

The youth's mouth curved in an amused smile. "Would you have? I have some small control over time. I can put it back, and you can see?"

Arthur couldn't tell if the youth was mocking him. He flushed in a way he hadn't since coming to the fairy kingdom, embarrassment and uncertainty warring with his accustomed arrogance. "Don't trouble yourself," said Arthur, half a beat too late.

"I am Merlin Half-Elven," said the youth. "Well met, Arthur Pendragon."

Around them the mop-up work of the battle continued: prisoners shackled, water and healing brought to the wounded, cerements of death brought to the slain. "Well met," Arthur replied. He looked down at his hands. The angry burns turned whole again where Merlin touched them.

Merlin didn't seem in any hurry to let go of Arthur's hands, even though they were healed. Arthur looked at him again, suddenly shy. Around him the fairy knights were beautiful in triumph, exchanging congratulations and praising each other's valor. Lady Nyneve glided over the battlefield, her feet hardly touching the ground, dispensing healing and comfort with a touch, but Merlin stood out, brighter than any of them, a vivid presence where the fair folk seemed all shadows and motes of light.

"I should . . ." said Arthur, seeing Nyneve grow closer.

"Should you?" asked Merlin, grinning mischievously. "The lady Nyneve has been queen for millennia. She can spare you for an afternoon."

This is what she must have meant, when she said Arthur would love Merlin more. She was right—the thin promise of yet more fairy delights paled in comparison with the humanity this Merlin offered.

The Fairy were creatures of flighty caprice and deeply held grudges. Arthur had helped his court fulfill the latter; he felt no guilt allowing himself the former. Merlin let go of his hands and mounted up on his horse, an ordinary one for this fair land, its coat the same wood-dark brown as Merlin's hair. Arthur mounted his, which had waited patiently though his single combat, and they rode off into the forest.

As soon as they passed under the branches of the silver-leafed oaks, the groans of the dead and the dying went silent. "There," said Merlin. "Isn't that better?"

Arthur smiled at him and said, "Yes." The movement felt unaccustomed after so long in the fairy kingdom. Did he truly smile so little here, in this land of delight? He couldn't remember.

He followed Merlin through the forest until they came to a clear pool that reflected the silver leaves above it. The rushes that grew around its bank were a brighter green than anything to be found in the mortal lands, but the sun still did not shine, and no birds sang.

Merlin dismounted and Arthur did was well. Arthur was very aware that he was caked with the sweat and gore of battle, that he still wore his fairy mail, lighter than that which he'd worn in Camelot, but hot and heavy nonetheless. He stripped it off and laid it on the ground. Underneath his shirt was stiff with dried sweat, and his face and hands felt like they were covered with grit.

Merlin helped him take the other pieces off, helped him unlace armor and boots, undo knots that were too difficult for his battle-weary fingers. Arthur stripped off his undergarments when Merlin was done and dived into the pool.

The water was warm. Arthur floated on his back and looked up at the colorless sky, trying, as always, to discern the source of the light.

"It is illusion," said Merlin, his voice muddled through the water in Arthur's ears.

Arthur found his feet again. Merlin was standing quite near him in the water. "Are the people illusion too? Is this all just a dream?" Arthur asked.

"Is anything _just_ a dream?" Merlin asked in return, with a fey smile. "What is more powerful than a dream?"

"This," said Arthur, and then he shoved Merlin hard, and he went under the water, sputtering. Merlin was sneaky, though, and Arthur didn't see him until he'd surfaced behind Arthur, and ducked his head under the water.

They wrestled and fought and doused each other for a while before ending at an impasse, with Merlin riding Arthur's back and splashing him in the face. Of course, Arthur could duck him again at any time, but he couldn't get Merlin to let go, so he laughingly called a truce.

They climbed out of the pool and lay on the grass, drying in a perfect warm breeze. Arthur couldn't say later who moved to touch first, whether Merlin's hand reached out for his, or Arthur made that move, but their fingers found each other over the narrow space between them. Arthur's heart pounded in his chest; this simple contact was a more concrete experience than anything since he'd entered the fairy mound.

He made the next movement, though, pulling Merlin to him, kissing his lips, parting them with his tongue, rolling Merlin half under him and feeling Merlin's mouth open to his. Merlin responded eagerly, mouth opening, tongue questing back, teeth capturing Arthur's lower lip teasingly before letting it go again.

Arthur kissed over the stubble at his jaw, and down further, feeling the pulse in Merlin's neck beat under his lips. Merlin couldn't have been less like the fairy maids, or even Daragh, as he pressed his hips up against Arthur and they ground into each other, no elegance here, just eager hardness meeting Arthur's own.

His skin was like warm silk under Arthur's fingers, and he reacted so pleasingly to every touch that Arthur wanted to spend all afternoon watching what hands and lips and friction could do to him. Merlin's teeth worried his lower lip when Arthur's hand went between his legs, fighting for a control a full-blooded fairy would never have to question.

He had more hair than any of the fairy also, warm and coarse under Arthur's hand. He wrapped his fingers around Merlin's cock and rubbed it hard and leaking. Merlin made tiny, whimpering noises of pleasure. His eyes squeezed tight, and his mouth hung open.

"Look at me," said Arthur. He stopped the movement of his hand. Merlin tried to thrust up into the circle of his fingers, but Arthur stopped him. "Open your eyes and look at me."

He did, and Arthur's breath caught. In Merlin's face was all the vulnerability and need his fairy lovers had denied him, and more—he felt as though he held Merlin's soul within his grasp. Very deliberately, he moved his hand again, watching the expressions Merlin made with every twitch of his fingers.

He bent low over Merlin as he stroked him. Merlin's lips opened and closed, wordlessly begging for Arthur's lips on him again, but that was too close to forgetting for Arthur. He wanted to watch this: Merlin's face contorting as he spasmed and came, and the slackness afterward as hot seed spilled over his hand. Merlin's body was damp with sweat against him, sticky and warm and oh so human.

"I see why she did not wish me to meet you," Merlin said. He reached up and touched Arthur's lips. "I have met other mortals but . . ."

Arthur would have liked to hear himself compared favorably with other mortals, but Merlin trailed off and replaced his fingers on Arthur's mouth with lips. He rolled Arthur onto his back, and kissed down his bare chest. He took Arthur's nipple between his teeth. The bite stung, but sent a jolt of electricity to his prick and it jumped against Merlin's hip.

His lips were hot when he opened them over Arthur's cock. Merlin sucked him down, greedy and sloppy, slick, wet mouth taking him in relentlessly, too fast for him to enjoy the ride, but he came hard enough that he couldn't complain, hips jerking up, and Merlin's jaw worked to take him all in.

When he opened his eyes again, the gold and silver leaves stirred in a rougher breeze. He looked down and Merlin's eyes met his, dancing with delight. His lips were red and swollen. Arthur sat up and kissed him hard and biting until Merlin's breath came in gasps again.

"There's more," said Merlin. He showed Arthur things Daragh hadn't shown him, how Arthur's fingers, slick with spit, could slide into Merlin's arse and hit a spot that made him moan every time, how the space for one finger widened to two, until Merlin was pushing back against his hand. Arthur was hard again as if Merlin had never made him come, but not with the thin dissatisfaction he'd felt with Nyneve's ladies, but a slower, hotter burn than the first time they'd touched.

He took Merlin from above, so he could watch him still, see his full lips parted with pleasure as Arthur pushed into him, watch his cock flush red under Arthur's hand. He came before Arthur, slick and hot on Arthur's stomach. Arthur waited until the pulses around him slowed and began thrusting into him again. Arthur bit Merlin's shoulder when he came, leaving a bruise as red as a rose on Merlin's pale skin.

They stayed joined for a moment before Arthur lay down next to him again. Arthur felt as if his skin could barely contain him—he didn't know if he could ever get his fill of this, ever become as jaded as the fairy were. If his body weren't exhausted by battle and sex, he would climb on top of Merlin again, take him again and watch him shudder with it.

"The lady Nyneve . . .," Arthur said reluctantly.

Merlin rolled over on his side and brushed his fingers through the hair on Arthur's chest. "What of her?" he asked.

"She offered herself to me as reward for winning this battle."

Merlin smiled. "She offered _you_ to me for the same reason," he said.

Arthur pushed him away and sat up. "I'm no trollop for her to pass around." Merlin looked wounded, but for the moment, Arthur didn't care. "And what, did you enchant me or something?" Merlin's skin still bore a path of pink marks, from Arthur's mouth and fingers and he longed to follow them again, but instead he looked away.

"No," said Merlin, his voice plaintive. "I saw you, and I wanted to meet you, but she would not let me." He put his hands gently on Arthur's back. Arthur didn't move, but didn't shake them off either. "She knew . . .," he said, then kissed Arthur's neck, mouth warm and beguiling.

Arthur recalled the sad look in Nyneve's eyes before she had sent him out to battle. "Yes, she knew," he said before kissing Merlin again, drawing their bodies back together.

***

They rode back to the court in the gathering darkness. No dusk came in Fairy, but the light diminished all around them until it was finally gone. Nyneve looked at Arthur when he and Merlin entered the great hall, side by side. Her hand hovered above the cheek of her latest paramour. She beckoned to Arthur. Arthur suffered a pang of guilt and glanced apologetically at Merlin.

"How many days have you left here?" she asked, after Arthur bowed deeply to her, and kissed her hand. Her voice was cold, and haughtier than Arthur had ever heard it. He felt Merlin at the rear of the hall, watching, and had to work not to turn and steal a glance at him.

"Near two hundred," said Arthur.

"It will pass like a leaf on a stream," she said, voice growing kinder, now merely sad. "You will count every day, and wish it were ten."

"What—"

"He will be lost to you after that," she said, hardly seeming to notice that Arthur had spoken. "If he steps into the mortal lands, he will die." Her voice on the last word was like the tolling of a deep bell. Arthur could feel the truth of it echoing through this world and the other.

"My gift to you," she continued, "is all your time remaining. I can give you no more."

Merlin joined his bed that night, and sat by his side every day after. He helped Arthur dispense judgment, using magic and wisdom to weigh the truth.

Two hundred days had seemed an eternity when Arthur spoke the words. He tired of the fairy maidens quickly; surely he would tire of Merlin soon as well. But he did not; each day spent with Merlin was a delight, each night was a pleasure.

They fought often, loud and violently, over everything and nothing, battles of will and wits that left Arthur flushed with desire.

One night they fought over the proper division of cows after an ineffective cattle raid. The law was unclear, but Merlin's sense of right and wrong was not. The fairy court turned their faces away from the fighting, and whispered behind hands and fans that this is what one might expect of mortals.

They continued their fight in the chamber they shared, shouting back and forth until Merlin finally yelled, "They're his cows. They come when he calls them!"

It wasn't an argument he hadn't made before, but suddenly Arthur started laughing, and Merlin did as well, lips curving in a purely mortal grin. They ended that night in a tangle of limbs, and Merlin riding Arthur, teasing him to the edge until he admitted that some of Merlin's other arguments had merit too.

"Why are you called Merlin Half-Elven?" Arthur asked one night. Aside from his magic and preternatural grace, Merlin seemed as human as Arthur. Sex had made him as sweaty and sticky as it did Arthur and plastered his fine, dark hair to his forehead in little curls. Soon the perpetual pleasant breeze would cool them, but for now Arthur liked the heat.

"My father was a fairy magician and my mother was a human," he said without affect.

Arthur had already known that, from some enquiries of Nyneve and Daragh. Daragh liked to twit him about his choice of bedmate, but somehow here he couldn't be embarrassed, not by the Fairy. They were missing the essential spark they craved in him. In this dreamlike world, they never seemed real enough for their opinions to matter.

"His mother was cast out of her village for consorting with unclean forces," Daragh had told him. "Mortals can be so cruel." Arthur had merely smiled blandly and beat him soundly during their daily sparring.

"Surely there are others," Arthur said to Merlin, trying to lead him along.

"Not that I know of," Merlin answered. "There is a legend, that Fairy must pay a tithe to Hell."

Arthur stayed silent. Merlin rarely revealed anything of himself. Neither of them did; something about Fairy discouraged it.

"Even here, there are those who say my father was no fairy, but one of Hell's demons. No one has ever seen magic like mine." He let a light play over his fingertips, the same bright, pure light that had confounded their enemies on the battlefield. For a moment Arthur saw depths of loneliness in his eyes, but then he smiled and looked sidelong at Arthur, and Arthur forgot the moment, forgot anything beyond making Merlin gasp and moan for him again.

Arthur tried to tell himself that it didn't matter that the days that numbered a year and a day were growing few. He couldn't have Merlin back in Camelot, and as much as Merlin lit his days and warmed his nights, he couldn't stay in Fairy just for Merlin. Here he was king because Lady Nyneve said so. In Camelot he would be king because he willed it; his strength would bind the lesser kingdoms to him or let them slip away. It was a true challenge to be faced.

***

Ten days before his time in Fairy would end, Arthur lay next to Merlin, holding Merlin's slim body to his broader one, and watched him sleep. Merlin murmured in his dreams, words or magic Arthur couldn't catch. The room was lit with tiny, fantastic scenes, which faded and shifted as Arthur looked at them: Arthur fighting turned into a strange beast, half man, half horse, who then was slain in turn by another copy of himself. Images of Merlin and him kissed and touched and turned away, speaking words with no sound. A dragon breathed a gout of fire that turned into a regiment of knights who then grew into trees with leaves like beaten copper.

The dragon breathed out again, and another line of knights advanced. These too were swallowed by the forest, and now Arthur could see their faces contort with fear before they were turned into trees. The other dream images faded from the room, but this remained, the forest of frozen warriors. Merlin's brow furrowed and he flinched in his sleep.

Arthur had some experience now in waking him from nightmares. The key was to do it slowly, or Merlin's magic found a target in the unlucky soul trying to wake him. Arthur kissed the back of his neck and murmured soothing things, just like he would to a fractious horse, and Merlin's brow smoothed. Arthur continued kissing him, over one ear and around his jaw, and across his shoulder until Merlin turned in his arms and kissed Arthur drowsily on the lips.

He always tasted sweet, even in the middle of the night or first thing in the morning—that sweetness was probably a gift from his fairy blood. "You were dreaming," said Arthur when the kiss broke.

"Yes," said Merlin. His brow furrowed again.

"You were dreaming about a dragon?"

"Mmmm? Did I say something?"

"I saw it. I thought all the dragons had been killed except for the one . . . my father had chained up beneath the castle." Mentioning his father flooded Arthur with shame and fear that felt alien to this peaceful place. He became very aware that he held a young man in his arms, and a magician as well, and he honestly had no idea which would upset his father more.

"Some still live in Fairy."

"Why did you dream of it?"

Merlin yawned and turned his face away. "How should I know? It was a dream."

"I only have ten days left," said Arthur. He pressed his nose into Merlin's hair. It tickled and smelled like springtime grass. "I wish you could come with me," he said, quiet enough that Merlin could ignore it if he wished. He hadn't known it was true until he spoke it, but once he said the words he knew: he would brave his father's wrath to have Merlin by his side. There had to be a way.

"I do too," Merlin replied, just as quiet. "I would die in your world."

"I will die in my world too," said Arthur.

"I would crumble to dust at my first footstep. I have lived here for too long." He kissed Arthur again and would say no more.

***

The next morning, Arthur faced Daragh with staves, and with pure, ferocious strength, fought him to the ground. Then they went to swords, and again, Arthur's aggression had him yielding within a few minutes.

"Bare handed?" Arthur suggested next.

"Leave off," Daragh answered. "You're too much for me today." Arthur felt a little better having heard that; it salved his ego, even if it didn't give him vent for his anger. "I think some of the lads would footrace you if you need to," Daragh added.

Arthur actually considered it for a moment, but no, that would just be embarrassing. He was a fleet runner, but the fairy could move as quick as thought when they wished it. He reached down and pulled Daragh to his feet. Daragh dusted himself off carefully and pulled his jacket into place.

"What troubles you, Arthur?" he asked, putting his hand on Arthur's shoulder. His voice was free of the mocking tone it had borne since Arthur had taken up with Merlin, and Arthur was grateful for it.

"I have only ten more days here," said Arthur.

"You could stay," he said. Arthur saw in his eyes a glimmer of vain hope.

"You know I cannot."

"Then you must find a way to bring him with you. He is as you are here. He does not belong. Here we fight our endless wars, and nothing ever changes, except that year in and year out, we grow further from the human lands. One day there will be no path between us anymore, but we shall go on. You mortals, you go forward, while we march endless circles. He belongs with you."

It was too great a gift of candor and intimacy for Arthur to spoil it with a flippant word. "What do you advise?" he asked gravely.

"There are creatures who hold the keys to the gates between this world and ours. They have desires like any other creature. Find a bargaining chip, and you could gain Merlin's life."

"What creatures?"

"Gods and goddesses, demons and angels." He spread his hands. "Gryphons and dragons, even, and some I cannot name. Ask him."

There was only one 'him'. Merlin the mysterious. Arthur put his hand on Daragh's shoulder and thanked him sincerely.

Merlin wasn't in their rooms, and he couldn't be found unless he wished it, so Arthur passed the day with his usual pursuits. Merlin appeared at the evening feast, while Arthur lounged in Nyneve's divan. She played idly with the strings of his tunic. Arthur was used to being treated somewhat as her lapdog, but he sat up when Merlin entered the hall.

He glanced at her for permission. She nodded it, and he sprang from his seat and cornered Merlin in the door of the hall. Conversation around them quieted, as it often did. There was something about all their interactions that was too heated, too human, for the fairy throng to ignore. Arthur saw one of the women near them watching them with undisguised lust, and pulled Merlin out into the foyer.

He repeated what Daragh had told him. "Why didn't you tell me there might be a way?" he asked, voice rising again.

Merlin looked away. "I didn't think . . ."

Arthur pulled Merlin's chin back so he had to face him. "You do want to come back with me? You said you did."

"You said your father hates magic. That I would be executed." Merlin's eyes were wide and clear, but Arthur could see a trembling about his mouth. He could press here and win.

"So don't do magic. He won't be around forever."

Merlin's chin came up. "I don't do magic. I _am_ magic."

Arthur crossed his arms and started to turn away. He had rarely been denied anything, here or in Camelot, and why couldn't Merlin _see_ that this was right for both of them, that Merlin only had half a life in Fairy?

Merlin put his arms over Arthur's shoulder, and rested his chin on Arthur's shoulder. "Don't ruin the last days—"

He shrugged Merlin's touch off. "You've already ruined them."

"Because I don't want to be killed by your father," Merlin said.

"I wouldn't let that happen, but you don't believe me." He turned. Merlin's lips pushed out in what Arthur would have previously called a pout and kissed into a smile. Now he held firm. "Get away from me."

Merlin opened his mouth as if to speak again, but then walked out of the open doorway and into the night.

***

Arthur could not sleep that night, nor any night after. His bed felt empty, and the air seemed cold, as though he were already back in the rougher weather of Albion.

He threw himself back into training for his last days. He demanded Daragh show him every bit of fancy footwork that had beaten him in the past. Every night there was feasting and now Arthur looked for oblivion there, in drink and songs that took him away from himself. He invited Branwen back to his bed and took the forgetfulness of release that she offered and tried not to want more.

On his last day, he woke up to find Merlin sitting in the chair by the window, waiting for him. "Good, you're awake," he said briskly. "There's someone you need to talk to."

Arthur rubbed the sleep from his eyes and said, "What?" His mouth tasted sour, and he remembered feasting from the night before, and fairy liquor that most of the host could hold better than he.

"Come on, get up, I'll help you dress." And Merlin was pulling Arthur's nightshirt up and putting another one on him before Arthur could object.

"I told you to get out," he said, still a little groggy. "Didn't I?"

"Yes, you were quite an ass. If I weren't in a forgiving mood, you would be wearing their ears right now." At Arthur's uncomprehending look he added, "Ass's ears. Because you're an ass."

Arthur frowned. "Am not."

"You are. Hurry up."

Arthur shrugged and made a face, but he followed Merlin anyway. Merlin had a trick of moving through Fairy faster than Arthur could on his own feet, or even riding a horse. A few steps outside the hall and they were in a forest. A few steps more and they were at the base of a staircase that led up a steep mountain and disappeared into rock that glowed red.

"We have to walk from here," Merlin said.

"We _have_ been walking," Arthur countered. "Just—very quickly."

The steps were tiring, and stretched on for longer than they appeared to. Most of the day passed before their path finally flattened out and curved around a bend into a deep black cavern.

"Halloooooo," Merlin called out. "I brought him."

A rush of air pushed Arthur's hair back, and a deep voice said, "Excellent." Then, as Arthur's eyes adjusted to the dimness, a large dragon flew out of the cave and perched on a rock outcropping near the entrance, claws gripping the rock like some great falcon.

"Prince Arthur," said the dragon, "I fear our time is short, and there is work to do."

Arthur crossed his arms over his chest. "I'm not doing anything until you explain to me what's going on."

Merlin and the dragon exchanged an unmistakable look of exasperation and Merlin said, "I think that's what he's trying to do."

"Young Merlin found me," said the dragon. "He told me he wished to go into the mortal lands, and he wanted my help."

Arthur turned and looked at Merlin. "You do?" he asked.

Merlin's eyes were wide and fearful, but he nodded. Before he could say anything else the dragon continued: "Your father has killed all but one of the dragons in Albion. When you become king, you must free the last dragon. If you promise to do this, I will smooth the way for Merlin to go back to the mortal world, and live a mortal span there."

Arthur glanced at Merlin again, who was nodding eagerly. He remembered all his doubts from before, what it would mean to his life to have Merlin there, how much trouble he could cause. But . . . "I swear to free him if I become king."

"With Merlin by your side, you will be king, Prince Arthur," said the dragon. "You will not remember this, but you will keep your promise nonetheless. My cousin will see to it." With those cryptic words, the dragon sprang from his perch and flew off into the darkening sky.

"Well," said Arthur when he was gone. "I'm not sure I deserved that."

"Deserved what?"

"You coming with me."

"Is that 'sorry'?"

Arthur shrugged. "I suppose so."

Merlin rolled his eyes. "You probably don't, but I'm coming anyway. Someone has to keep you out of trouble when you're king. You're shit at cattle disputes, for one thing."

Arthur stepped in closer. "That's true," he said.

"Do you know how long I've been in Fairy?" Merlin asked quietly. His hands found Arthur's across the gap between them, and their fingers touched gently.

Arthur shook his head. "You never told me."

"Since before the Romans."

Arthur knew he should say something to acknowledge the magnitude of the sacrifice Merlin was making. When he was king, perhaps he would have the words, but for now he smiled and ducked his head. It seemed too large a thing for a mere thank you.

"What did he mean I won't remember it?" he asked.

"This will fade when you leave," Merlin said. "At first you will remember, but then it will seem as a too-vivid dream. And then that will fade as well."

"Then how—?"

Merlin stepped close to him, and kissed his lips, not deeply, but lingering. Arthur could smell his skin, taste the sweetness of his mouth, and he tried to engrave it on his memory.

"You'll know me," Merlin said. "You just won't know it." He took the clasp from his cloak and pressed it into Arthur's hand. It looked like one of the silver leaves from the fairy forest. Arthur closed his hand around it, and the sharp points bit into his skin.

"Now you sound like the dragon," Arthur said. He put his other arm around Merlin and held him close so their whole bodies were pressed together.

"You should go," said Merlin, looking up at a sky gone almost to black. "I can send you."

"What about you?"

Merlin smiled, somewhat sadly this time. "It's time for me to go be born."

Arthur shook his head. "What?"

"To a mortal woman. She'll probably think me a changling. The last one did."

"I don't understand. You'll be too young."

"Time is fluid in fairy, and I go back to a different one." Merlin kissed him one last time. "I will not remember you in my mortal body," he said, with that droop lidded smile that made Arthur want to take him right here.

"But you'll know? You just won't know you know?" Arthur asked, but somehow his words didn't leave his mouth. The world around him grew misty, insubstantial. Merlin looked like a ghost for a moment, and then he was gone.

Arthur woke curled in his cloak, wearing the same clothes he had the day of the hunt for the white hart. In his hand was the clasp that Merlin had given him.

Arthur looked down at it. "I'll know," he said. His horse whickered, and he looked up. The horse seemed no more concerned than on any other morning. He felt a pang of guilt—he had not given it one thought before mounting up with the fairy host.

The ride back to Camelot was long, but he found his way. Though the sun was hidden, he found his way back by the moss that grew on the north sides of the trees, and the shape of the land that led him home.

When he returned Uther scolded him for staying out overnight, and worrying the knights, but it appeared he really had only been gone a day, just as the fairies had promised. _He_ knew the difference though, as did his body, with a year's more muscle on it, a year of sword calluses on his hands, a year of skill. The next day the summer warmth broke, and fall was upon them, deepening quickly into winter.

He looked for Merlin's face among the men and boys of Camelot, but did not find it there. He put Merlin's clasp in a drawer, and slowly began to forget. He saw Merlin's face in dreams, but more and more, they faded upon waking, until he had convinced himself that the year in the fairy court was no more than a vivid dream, and Merlin's face faded from his memory.

He found a widow with a mobile mouth and a lean face who wanted to share his bed one night. It was his first time, but every sensation seemed like something out of a forgotten dream, and when she arched underneath him and dug her fingers into his shoulders, he could taste a name that wasn't hers on his lips.

 

**Epilogue.**

"There's something about you, Merlin," he said when the whelp was about to be hauled off again by the guards. He could have this Merlin killed, by rights—his father would probably think him soft that he didn't—but he reminded Arthur of someone. He'd never met Merlin before and yet seeing Merlin glare at him felt like some empty space at Camelot had finally been filled.

Merlin gave him an exceedingly snotty look before scampering off to wherever he kept himself when he wasn't bothering Arthur. Merlin really did need to be taught a lesson or twelve. That was probably all Arthur felt: the pleasure of having someone surprise him for once. Not a one of his knights couldn't best this Merlin in a fight, but they didn't have his defiance. Arthur wondered how long that would last, and if he really wanted to see it broken.

He dreamed that night of a fairy court. In his dream he felt it was home, somehow, and he longed to return so much his throat ached. Merlin was there, bright and solid among the ephemeral rest. "I will see you again, in a mortal body," he said.

Arthur looked at this fey Merlin, who was graceful and wanton compared to the one he met yesterday, and asked, "How will that one be different?"

Merlin touched Arthur's lips with a fingertip, as a smile danced on his own. "Clumsier, certainly," he said. "Probably not as good looking. Wearing magic like an ill fitting cloak."

"Doesn't sound like a good trade," Arthur answered, frowning against Merlin's fingers. He took one into his mouth and drew patterns on it with tongue and teeth. "I like you like this."

Merlin traced down Arthur's chest; his nipple puckered under Merlin's wet fingers. "You'll like me that way too. I will be innocent. Unknowing." His laugh ended in a sharp intake of breath, as Arthur pulled them close together and ground his hips into Merlin's. "Just think how much you'll have to teach me," Merlin added with a naughty smile.

Arthur woke, hard and gasping, with no memory of his dream beyond a pair mocking blue eyes. He brought himself off with one touch.

From somewhere, he heard a sound like dragon's wings flapping.


End file.
